From “The Free Thought Project”
Sergeant Hunter Foster, the officer formerly of the Senatobia Police Department responsible for the fatal shooting of 1-year-old Kohan Wiley, has resigned as video seems to contradict the official account.
Late last week, more information surfaced regarding the killing of one year old Kohen Wiley in the parking lot of a Walmart in Mississippi by Senatobia police.
As The Free Thought Project has previously reported, on June 14th of this year, in the parking lot of a Walmart in Tate County, Mississippi, about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee at approximately 2:00 PM officers of the Senatobia Police Department and Tate County Sheriff’s Department responded to a call of a potential shoplifter. Reports allege the officers witnessed two women, identified as Vellesiya Wiley, and Latoya Ferrell, carrying a package of diapers and one year old Kohen Wiley to their vehicle, and the officers gave pursuit.
In the insuing chaos shots rang out. In the aftermath, Ferrell was critically injured, shot in the arm and the thigh. One year old Kohen lay dead in his mother’s arms.
Following the shooting, a statement from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation alleged that as the vehicle fled the scene it swerved towards officers, prompting them to discharge their weapon. A claim which until recently had remained unverified. Now video evidence of the altercation in the form of body camera footage has been leaked to the public to show the truth.
Viewer Discretion Is Advised.
The video begins with surveillance camera footage from inside the Walmart, showing the two women later identified as Wiley and Ferrell briefly speaking with who appears to be an employee before leaving the store. The employee runs to the back where officers already on the scene are speaking with other store associates, informing them that the women have left.
The officers rush to begin a pursuit. At this time, no crime has yet been confirmed to have been committed. Despite this, the officers charge at the women’s vehicle with guns drawn and, contrary to the report from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the video clearly shows the officers placing themselves in front of a moving vehicle. Rather than swerving towards officers, the video shows the driver swerving away and in between them. 32 year old Sergeant Hunter Foster, who had placed himself directly in the vehicle’s path, opened fire into the passenger side window as it passed by him.
An analysis of the incident by The Intercept sums up the events quite succinctly —
What the videos show is that the police officers themselves needlessly escalated a shoplifting incident into the scenario that they claim put them at risk. Almost immediately after being informed that two people were “running,” the five armed officers sprinted out to the parking lot, surrounded the car, and, at various points in the confrontation, drew their guns. They also positioned themselves in a way that cut off any escape route for the driver.
These are reckless, aggressive tactics in response to a minor shoplifting charge. They also violate best practices in policing.
Most departments today prohibit officers from standing in front of the possible escape route of a car when someone inside is suspected of only minor offenses. Many also require officers to get out of the way of a vehicle if it drives toward them. While most departments authorize a police officer to use deadly force if they “reasonably” believe it’s necessary to protect their or others’ lives, this generally does not excuse using lethal force if the “reasonable” fear arose from a cop’s own violation of department policy.
As a significant point worth mentioning, neither Vellesiya Wiley or Latoya Ferrell have been charged with a crime, shoplifting or otherwise, in the months since the shooting.
For Mississippi’s Senatobia Police Department, the policy regarding officers engaging with a suspect in a moving vehicle reads in part like a vague guidance. One part, however, distinctly stands out from the rest.
Documents obtained by Fox 13 show that the department’s policy for engaging with a suspect’s vehicle emphasizes that officers are meant to move out of the path of an oncoming vehicle, whereas the bodycam footage shows the officers did the opposite of this, standing in front of the oncoming vehicle until the very last moment as it swerves to the left in an attempt to avoid the armed assailants blocking them in.
The policy distinctly outlines “Officers will not discharge their firearms at a fleeing vehicle”.
Despite this clear violation of department policy, the Mississippi Attorney General’s office ultimately ruled that the fatal shooting of an innocent one year old was justified, declining to prosecute Sgt. Foster for young Kohen’s death.
As TFTP reported last week, information uncovered in the months since the shooting revealed that Sgt. Foster has a known history of misconduct, including using racist rhetoric towards his co-workers only days prior to the Wiley killing. Whereas the department as a whole has faced years of criticism by Senatobia residents for discriminatory policing and excessive uses of force.
Most notably, court records show that in 2019 Foster, then employed by the Southaven Mississippi Police Department, was involved in an excessive use of force incident in which Foster later falsified police reports, exaggerating the threat of a vehicle and falsely claiming that the driver attempted to swerve towards officers.
With the video evidence of the incident now public, it appears this killer cop is keen on using the same excuses to justify his recklessness and brutality.
However, his days in the employment of Senatobia PD have come to an end, as one day prior to the release of the body camera footage Foster would hand in his resignation from the department.
Following Foster’s resignation, Senatobia Police Department interim chief Angelica Maze, appointed in September following the firing of former chief Harold Vanderford, would also step down from her position.
While debate still rages online about what is and isn’t justified, what does or does not constitute lethal force, what Miss Wiley and Miss Ferrell could have done differently, and any other number of hypothetical scenarios, one thing remains a heartbreakingly undeniable fact. An innocent one year old child is dead. Dead from a bullet wound inflicted by the firearm of Hunter Foster.
Regardless of any other circumstances surrounding the situation, killing an innocent, especially a young infant, still deserves consequences.
While Foster, through his attorney Martin Zummach, emphatically denies knowing that a baby was present in the vehicle, unintentionally killing someone is still a crime punishable under law. It’s called involuntary manslaughter, and under Mississippi Code § 97-3-25, is a felony that carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
No crime Vellesiya Wiley or Latoya Ferrell could have committed would have justified Kohen’s death. And a cop with a known history of abuse, excessive force, and racism, violating department protocol, not once but twice, discharging his weapon into a vehicle of innocent people killing a one year old deserves nothing less than being held to the full measure of accountability applicable.